On April 9, Associated Students of Colorado State University members and students packed into the ASCSU senate chambers to hear the results of the 2025 elections and find out who will serve as student body president, vice president, speaker of the senate and fill the remaining senate seats for the 2025-26 academic year.
Following weeks of campaigning, roundtable discussions and public forums, it was announced that Jakye Nunley and Joseph Godshall were elected as the next ASCSU president and vice president.
There were initially three campaigns for the presidency: Jakye Nunley and Joseph Godshall; Connor Flynn and Jonas Andersen; and Rakesh Podder and Naga Somasekhar Prasanth Konada. However, by the end of the first week of campaigning, only the Nunley-Godshall ticket remained, as the other two teams dropped out of the race.
“Thank you to the students in this room who showed up, who were part of the campaign, who tabled, who did class presentations, who did first-year student outreach, who did all the things and those concerted efforts that we tried to make and attempts to bridge these gaps that we see on campus,” Nunley said. “Thank you all, and I look forward to a year’s worth of hard work with you all.”
The Nunley-Godshall campaign primarily focused on including multiple perspectives and student voices in the conversation to recenter ASCSU on students. The pair also leveraged their experience as ASCSU representatives to support their goals for next year’s administration. Nunley currently serves as ASCSU chief of staff and Godshall, formerly a senator, serves as ASCSU director of public relations.
“One of the most beautiful parts of our campaign is that it was ran by people who were outside of the organization,” Godshall said. “We had so many different voices in that conversation.”
Brooke Reese, who also ran uncontested, won the election for the speaker of the senate.
Despite cross-branch ASCSU efforts, this year’s voter turnout was a staggering 3.81%, showing student engagement has significantly dropped compared to last year’s 11% voter turnout.
Additionally, the ASCSU Constitution was not ratified because it did not gain 10% of the student body’s approval, meaning that any changes passed by the senate this year have not been adopted.
During his announcement, Elections Manager Garett Lopez expressed disappointment in the voter turnout and the student reactions that followed the announcement.
“With all due respect, I don’t think any of us should be laughing — I think we should be a little embarrassed by this fact quite frankly,” Lopez said. “We only had 1,199 voters. I think we can do a lot better, and I think for a student government on a very large college campus. This is the sand box of democracy, and especially when we’ve had students so vocal, we’ve been so vocal ourselves, and we put these principles of (diversity, equity and inclusion) and democracy on a pedestal, and we can’t get our students to turn out.”
Lopez then commended the elections committee for their work and touched on the future of ASCSU.
“I don’t think this is at all on the committee and myself,” Lopez said. “I think every member of ASCSU needs to do a better job with elections, and I think everyone needs to be involved in campaigning. So going forward, I want to reiterate, we need to do better on elections.”
Following the announcement, ASCSU representatives and members of the elections committee made remarks congratulating the election winners while also expressing disappointment in the lack of voter engagement.
“I want to express that, as a member of both senate and the elections committee, the elections are the student body’s problem as an entirety,” College of Natural Sciences Sen. Ferrin Jaudon said. “It’s disappointing that not many senators and senate leadership pushed the vote as hard as we could have this year. We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. If we want to lead, we need to care about turnout, not just for our own sake but for the legitimacy of the student voice as a whole.”
Additionally, the new Forever Green T-shirt design was approved, and the winners of the ASCSU Senate races were announced.
Ryer Roberts and Eveline Rivera were announced as senator-elects for the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Representing the Graduate Student Council are Jared McGlothlin, Norman Conquest, Brooke Hansen, Claire Pickerel and Kwabena Opoku.
Simon Dettelback was voted in for the College of Health and Human Sciences, and Haven Bohn was elected to represent Intra-University.
Charva Jamison, Annelise Dusterberg, Priscilla Pauda Perez, Marisol Villa and Hayden Taylor were elected to fill the remaining seats for the College of Liberal Arts.
Celina Mora was elected to the Warner College of Natural Resources, and Ella Gravante and Killian Garnand were elected to serve the College of Natural Sciences.
Lastly, Kristian Bridge and Alex Smithhisler were elected to represent the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
Each candidate will be sworn into office during a weekly senate session later in the semester.
Reach Laila Shekarchian at news@collegian.com or on social media @CSUCollegian.
